Marcus Whitman statue will soon have a new home in Washington State Capitol

He’s getting moved from the north entryway down the hall in the next few months to make way for a statue of Native American leader Billy Frank Jr. seated on driftwood with jumping salmon.

Votes by a pair of state panels on July 23 made the relocation official, ending a protracted conversation on where to put the 11-foot, 9,144-pound bronze statue of Whitman that’s been shaped by political, architectural and financial concerns.

“We don’t want to have any further delay in getting the Billy Frank Jr. statue into a rightful place of prominence in our legislative building,” said Beau Perschbacher, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Bob Ferguson and Chair of the State Capitol Committee.

Whitman, who settled near what is today Walla Walla in the 1830s, is one of two Washington figures to have a statue in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. The other is Mother Joseph. Replica statues of each are positioned on opposite sides of the state Capitol’s north portico that faces the campus flag circle and Temple of Justice.

State lawmakers in 2021 decided to replace the Whitman sculptures with statues of Frank, the Nisqually Indian Tribe leader who was an indomitable force in the fight for the protection of salmon and Native American rights.

Those are done. On Friday, July 31, workers are scheduled to put the Frank statue in place in the U.S. Capitol but quickly cover it up with a decorative box until a formal unveiling ceremony, possibly in late September. Meanwhile, the Whitman statue it replaces will be returned to Washington.

“I’m pretty filled with emotion when I think about how close we’re getting to this,” said Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, a committee member and longtime friend of Frank and his family.

The replica statue of Frank is ready too but settling on locations for it and Whitman has been discussed for more than two years.

Some state officials always envisioned Frank’s future home would be the foyer on the building’s north side. But pairing him and Whitman, a doctor and missionary whose role in the displacement of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest has been scrutinized, emerged early as a concern among panel members and in Indian Country.

The State Capitol Committee, in conjunction with the Capitol Campus Design Advisory Committee, evaluated more than a dozen options.

They rejected moving the mammoth Whitman statue outside due to risk of exposure to the elements, vandals or both. Moving it to another floor risked damaging the historic building as it would require expensive structural reinforcing due to its weight. 

They did look at having Whitman and Frank side-by-side or pairing Mother Joseph and Frank. 

In the end, they chose to keep Whitman on the same floor and move it around the corner and to the right of the entrance to the Senate cafeteria room. It will be in a corridor midway between the offices of the governor and the lieutenant governor, a path that draws far less foot traffic than the entryway. It is expected to occur late this year or in early 2027. Mother Joseph will stay put.

Lawmakers approved $335,000 for this endeavor and $43,624 has been spent on structural studies so far, members of the two committees were told on July 23.

Costs of moving Whitman to this new location are estimated at $184,500, according to Kimberly Sockle, Assistant Director of Facility Professional Services for the Department of Enterprise Services, which manages the state building.

“I think we’ve very comprehensively studied every possible location. I think the recommendation makes a ton of sense to me,” said Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds. 

Liias said he hoped the unveiling of the new Frank statue in the state Capitol occurs during the 2027 session “so that we can have our legislators present and able to fully participate. I think that that would be a wonderful consummation of all the work that’s gone into this.”

Courtesy of Washington State Standard